Thursday, November 15, 2007

Besides the fact that Coonelly has eyes that mainly stay open, and not closed, the article contains other interesting news such as:

Coonelly said he had been approached with other opportunities by other teams in the past, eventually taking himself out of consideration. He decided to join the Pirates now, he said, because Nutting has been working to get the organization's financial house in order in recent years — the key element to begin re-building the Pirates in the model of the Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, three playoff teams whose payrolls are similar to a small market like Pittsburgh's.

“It can be done,” Coonelly said. “We can't afford the most expensive free-agent pitcher on the market, but we can succeed by taking that money and putting it into scouting and development.”

How will the Pirates spend "that money" on scouting and development? It appears to me that they are starting from scratch, so I am interested to see how this will happen.